(When we last left Nick, he was found guilty of intergalactic crime by a jury comprised of three guys in jumpsuits that beat him up and threw him in their van. The specific crime? "Inappropriate Disruption of God’s Newsletter". We now join Nick and his kooky kidnappers as they approach the mystical setting that will lead Nick to his undeniable demise.)
As we approached a destination I was totally unaware of at the time, I tried sucking up to these ninjaesque blokes that had captured me. But it was no avail. In my mind, I worked out three possible solutions. Either these guys were convinced that Chris really was the Earth’s savior, it was some kind of strange trick being played on me (not that anyone would want to play a trick on their old pal Nick. People love me you know.), or the most impossible solution of all: that Chris Conroy is, by some amazing factor unbeknownst to the world, really was God. I’m an open guy when it comes to religion. I wasn’t ruling it out as a possibility. Let’s face it: neither would you if you had ninjas on you for no apparent reason.
Alas, we arrive at our final destination. A cloud. An honest to goodness cloud, just sitting there right in the middle of the bloody road."Pardon me Gentlemen, but unless you’re Fritz Goddamn Lang, flying cars don’t exist."
"We aren’t flying, knave." they responded."Then pray tell, how have we arrived directly at a cloud?"
"HUSH!" And with that, smoke quite literally emitted from the heads of the ninja, just like in Looney Tunes. Figuring it would be best to leave them to their doings, I remained silent for the rest of the ride. Or at least what I thought would be the rest of the ride. But oh no, first we had to go to McDonald’s.Lemme explain something: I HATE, with a few dozen capital H’s, the service at McDonalds. They try and trick you into thinking that after you’ve survived a line roughly as long as it was to get tickets to see Moses part the damn sea, you think you’re gonna get the food. But oh no. First you have to put up with some fourteen year old junkie, whose so hopped up on pills that you have to smack him a time or two just so he wakes up to get your damn order. Then he pushes some buttons on this Great Depression-era cash register, yells something in the Tralfamadore language from Vonnegut books to the back room, where you can practically see the damn cow come off the truck and get gutted into your Big Mac. They throw it down on the counter with cup full of soda-flavored ice (or if you’re lucky enough to be there before six in the morning, coffeesludge). But alas, your old pal Junkie hasn’t given you a Big Mac! He gave you some weird fish contraption! Apparently three or four crack needles just doesn’t wake up the average teen anymore, hmm? So ya throw it back down on the counter, politely of course, since ya don’t wanna offend any of the two thousand rejectful and neglectful parents who know that if they by the latest hunk o’crap Happy Meal, it’ll shut their brainwarped, snot-nosed first-grader up for fifteen seconds. And the guy at the register doesn’t even remember you. Hell, no wonder he’s speaking’ Trafamadore, he’s Billy friggin’ Pilgrim, unstuck in time and ready to mess with my mind in any bloody way possible.
So that’s pretty much what happened, until the ninjas told me I was making a scene and dragged me by my feet back to the van. One of the kids spit on me. I spit back.So at last, we arrive at this cloud contraption. I was shoved down a beige carpeted walkway and into the cloud. Once inside, it no longer resembled a cloud. I passed by several prison cells. Dark and damp they were. As I turned around to ask my gentlemen in black where to go now. It was then I realized that they had vanished. That I was alone. I confess, I peeked into the jail cell and could not believe my eyes.
"Lando!" I yelled out."May I help you, young squire?" asked a voice from the background.
"Sweet Christmas, is that you Chris?""Actually, the name’s God these days."
"Chris, God, they sound the same.""Exactly." he replied.
"Look, God, I’ve had an off day. Let’s get whatever mystical storybook journey you have planned for me over with." Why did I talk so rudely to the creator? Because I knew two things to be certain at the time. First, no heavenly body would read Transmetropolitan and listen to Nick Cave, and second, because Billy Dee Williams was laying in a jail cell in a puddle of his own blood, with a bottle of Colt 45 in one hand, and other hand’s index figure pointed to his skylight."Don’t flatter yourself, my son. You have no fantastic journey ahead of you."
"Then why, may I ask, have you decided to lock me up in the Emerald City with Lando Calrissian?""Oh, fear not Nick. It is for the best, be sure of that. You best come with me nonetheless." So, I was lead into a little room. It looked my bedroom in the eighth grade , to be perfectly honest.
"Now, what is it you wanted to ask me?" With that, I scrambled through my coat and pulled out a pen and a teeny notebook. Maybe it was just the repeated ninja blows working their mind-mashing magic on me, but I for one was not going to have a conversation with "God" and not, at the very least, make an article out of it."Would you mind saying something god-like for the next Words From Beneath The Grass? I get a feeling a proper interview with the creator of the universe would snag Y3 that well-deserved Nobel Prize." But he didn’t say anything. He just laughed. Laughed in my damn face.
"What’s so funny?" I asked.Over a stream of unbridled laughter, "I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re not writing that column anymore! We renumbered it and hired John Byrne to make it all retro! Cool, huh?"
With that, I felt an overwhelming urge to stab the Messiah in the eye with a ball-point pen.E-mail the writer Believe it or not, I actually don't hate Nick for this column... ;-) -ed.
